Posts Tagged ‘The-map-is-the-territory’

Reliable data on economic growth is hard to come by in many parts of the world, especially in developing countries. Yet according to scientists, outer space offers a new perspective for measuring economic growth.

Using satellite images of nighttime lights, J. Vernon Henderson, Adam Storeygard, and David N. Weil from Brown University have created a new framework for estimating a country or region’s gross domestic product, or GDP by observing the changes in a country’s “night lights” as seen from outer space.

Share

Little over a week after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) became operational it broke down. As the world’s largest particle accelerator isn’t working, computer simulations are the only option for a whole generation of researchers. With entire PhD’s being based on simulated data, you wonder whether physics is still an empirical science.

Today’s most ambitious scientific instruments are modern-day cathedrals in their size and complexity. Situated as much as 175 meters (570 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to accelerate protons to near the speed of light and smash them together in four giant detectors spread around its 27-kilometre circumference. Built at a cost of $4.3 billion, making it not only the grandest but also the most expensive scientific instrument ever created by man.

The main argument for the creation of the LHC is to discover the Higgs bosons, an elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model in particle physics, but yet to be observed experimentally – a Nobel price is awaiting the one who makes the discovery.

SIMULATIONS REPLACE EMPIRICAL EXPERIMENTS

Physicists once hoped that the LHC would start its collisions in late 2006, but on 19 September 2008, shortly after the machine was finally switched on, an electrical short caused extensive damage along a sector of the machine. Repairs have taken longer than expected, and the LHC is not scheduled to restart before mid-November 2009.

The long delays have scattered the dreams of LHC Students who had hoped to use fresh data from the machine to use in their studies. According to the renowned Nature journal, LHC Students face data drought: “European graduate students face strict time constraints for completing their PhDs. Most universities require a thesis to be submitted within three to four years, and that means that students cannot wait for their data. Instead, their analyses are being done with data from ‘Monte Carlo’ simulations — computer programs that replicate what might come out of real collisions..”

Tags

Share

Although this TED video has been all over the web and commented on this website already, it still deserves a separate post: Desigineers Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry of the MIT Media Lab – Fluid Interfaces Group envision a ‘Sixth Sense’ a wearable gestural interface to pave the way for a more profound interaction with our environment by augmenting it with digital information. The next nature thinking in their argument is striking:

We’ve evolved over millions of years to sense the world around us. When we encounter something, someone or some place, we use our five natural senses to perceive information about it; that information helps us make decisions and chose the right actions to take. But arguably the most useful information that can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses, namely the data, information and knowledge that mankind has accumulated about everything and which is increasingly all available online.

Hence, they propose to blend all cultural information within the environment as a natural phenomenon. Culture becomes nature. Our environment becomes the interface again.

Of course, like with every emerging next nature, there is always an older nature lost: You’ll never be able to meet new people without immediately googling them.

Share

DNA related tools, once expensive and restricted to research and crime labs, are rapidly becoming affordable. Like GPS – once a high-tech wonder now turned into a everyday gadget – simple DNA sequencing may soon be available to almost everyone.

Designer Niko Vegt, master student at the Next Nature theme, has been working on an imaginary map of the DNA world. Unlike a regular map, which represents a physical territory, the DNA World map represents a conceptual territory of DNA related applications and developments. Its main continents are Science, Medical, Heath, Personal, Social, Justice and Environment – all surrounded by an ocean of Ethics.

Share

“It took just 10 minutes for a dozen prairie dogs to outwit the creators of the Maryland Zoo’s new $500,000 habitat. Aircraft wire, poured concrete and slick plastic walls proved no match for the fast-footed rodents, the stars of a new exhibit that opens today [June 12, 2009].
As officials were promoting the return of the zoo’s 28 prairie dogs – their former digs had been out of sight in a closed section of the animal preserve for more than four years – some of the critters found ways to jump, climb and get over the walls of their prairie paradise, a centerpiece exhibit just inside the zoo’s main entrance.
None got away, but for a few anxious minutes, they found every weakness in the enclosure built to hold them. (…) ” Read the rest of this article at baltimoresun.com

Prairiedogs may very well be the last creatures on earth laughing in the face of human world-domination.

Tags

Share

Kevin Kelly — senior maverick at Wired — asks people how they see the internet and if they can, visualize it. Here is how:

“The internet is vast. Bigger than a city, bigger than a country, maybe as big as the universe. It’s expanding by the second. No one has seen its borders. And the internet is intangible, like spirits and angels. The web is an immense ghost land of disembodied places. Who knows if you are even there, there. Yet everyday we navigate through this ethereal realm for hours on end and return alive. We must have some map in our head.
I’ve become very curious about the maps people have in their minds when they enter the internet. So I’ve been asking people to draw me a map of the internet as they see it. That’s all. More than 50 people of all ages and levels of expertise have mapped their geography of online.”

Share

Fleshmap touch investigates the collective perception of erogenous zones. Hundreds of people ranked how good it would feel to touch or be touched by a lover in different points of the body. The resulting images reveal a map of sensual desire with multiple focal points and islands of excitement.

Share

Visualization professor Jack van Wijk developed a new method of unfolding the earth: Myriahedral projections. The idea is take a map of a small part of the earth, which is almost perfect, glue neighboring maps to it, and repeat this until the whole earth is shown. Of course you get interrupts, but does this matter?

Share

In the future, every street will be a Nokia street? Perhaps not, however we may expect some changes in street signage due to the arrival of mobile & gps technology. Once everyone is carrying a personal navigation device those bluntly placed street signage may become obsolete – Try and find a cellphone booth in your neighborhood if you are not convinced.

I guess the question is not whether GPS technology will alter street signage, but rather which navigation solution feels more natural. Lets do a quick poll.

Which of the following feels more natural?
A) Finding your way using street signs and a paper map.
B) Finding your way with an interactive GPS solution.

Share

Since the days of Plato, the lost city of Atlantis has captivated the imagination of many. The city, if you don’t already know, was said to be a naval power located roughly 600 miles west of the Canary Islands…until it sank.

While browsing through Google Earth’s new underwater search tool, British aeronautical engineer Bernie Bamford sighted a mysterious grid of undersea lines. The strange pattern was spotted in the Atlantic ocean, west of Morocco in North Africa, close to one of the possible sites of the legendary island.

The story was reported by The Daily Telegraph – a national UK newspaper – as well as by UK Tabloid Sun. However, Google later confirmed that the Atlantic floor pattern, measuring about the size of Wales, was an ‘artefact’ of its map-making process. The maps are made using sonar measurements of the sea floor recorded by boats. The area in question was mapped by boats traveling in straight lines, a Google spokeswoman revealed.
“It’s true that many amazing discoveries have been made in Google Earth including a pristine forest in Mozambique that is home to previously unknown species and the remains of an Ancient Roman villa. In this case, however, what users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process,” she said.

Whether we are roaming the globe with Google Earth, descending into the depths of our genes or traveling to the outskirts of the universe, our world view is fundamentally shaped through interfaces.

Share

Forget about palmistry! MRI scans for candidates in top jobs such as bank directors could soon become part of the job-application package, says Erasmus University researcher Prof Willem Verbeke of Rotterdam, He’s confident brain scans will replace job interviews within 5 years.

Prof. Verbeke heads the department of neuro-economics, (NSIM), at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He predicts in an interview with Good Morning Netherlands radio station that employers demanding compulsory brain scans from their job applicants will soon become the most normal thing in the world – in fact within five years’ time’, he believes.

Tags

Share

Its title might be self-explanatory and it sure looks intriguing… however kokkugia fails to give a thorough description for this architectual piece. Classified as ‘peculiar image’ until further notice.

Share

Ten tons of cement were pourred into this grasscutters ant colony, revealing a subterranean structure of 8 meters / 26 feet deep. ‘Ant-City’ was built including circulating ventilation shafts and funghi gardens interconnected through pipelines.

Assuming that this is the work of a collective mind – would be logical. But then; imagine how would advanced aliens – studying earths cities – describe our architectual skills? Hence the real question should be: “How do aliens communicate?!”

Tags

Share

This summer researchers from technology firm QinetiQ and from Aberystwyth University flew an autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over fields in England and Wales to map the nitrogen levels in soil, to determine whether fertiliser applications were needed.

The data collected was then used to create a (NDVI) map, which tells you the difference between ‘green crops’ that are photosynthesising and bare ground. Where there is bare ground, more fertilizer may be needed.

The ecological impact of this technique is potentially huge. Imagine only watering crops that need to be watered (and only when required) instead of flooding the entire field. Imagine as well spraying just those diseased plants with herbicides (and only when there is an outbreak) instead of suffocating acres and acres of fields with poison all the time.

Imagine tractors using GPS and an upload of this data into an onboard machine that automatically regulates the application of fertilizer and pesticides—just the right amount and exactly where the chemicals are needed…

Tags

Share

The Maldives, a chain of islands off the coast of India is taking the possibility of disappearance into account. This little piece of paradise is so low above sea level that it might be flooded due to the effects of climate change. That’s why the Maldive government is looking for new land to start a new country. I would suggest the moon, Antarctica or Greenland. Or maybe the Dutch can help? I kinda like that OSX screensaver… Via treehugger (what’s in a name) »

Tags

Share

In the Kenyan wildlife conservancy Ol Pejeta elephants are tagged with a GPS-triggered text messaging device. Before the elephants start raiding the nearby villagers’ harvest they send a text message to the rangers. The rangers respond by chasing the elephants off again. The tag also enables online elephant tracking through Google Earth for preservation concerns. How long will it take until the wildlife online identity will walk around in second life for safari tours? And people get killed on the internet by grumpy elephant bulls?

Not only elephants are tagged with GPS coordinates, also other wild animals can be tracked easily. So the safari experience comes with ‘wildlife guarantee’ these days. It seems that even Africa looses its adventurous nature. When will we drive with our landrovers through the stock-market hunting for broke speculators?